


heart and flesh

by 99yeon



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, greek mythology x medical au, jiwoo is aphrodite, other girls are sprinkled around either as the gods or in the hospital, sooyoung is a cardiac surgeon, youll get it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27528502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99yeon/pseuds/99yeon
Summary: The goddess of love and a burnt out cardiac surgeon meet at a museum. This won't end well.
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Kim Jiwoo | Chuu
Comments: 40
Kudos: 223





	1. the heart asks pleasure - first

**Author's Note:**

> if there are inconsistencies in the case i apologize lmao i decided to change it from lapslock to proper sentence case 24/11

Jiwoo sidles up to Sooyoung as she's standing by the greek mythology exhibit - a new pop-up exhibition in the Museum of Natural History - and taps her lightly on the shoulder. 

"Wanna know something funny?"

Sooyoung blinks at her, her immediate instinct to take a step away from her. People don't just come up to you and start conversations unless they want you to sign a petition of some sort, and Sooyoung's committed herself to more than enough causes. When she'd first moved into the city for med school, she'd entertained every person that came up to her, because when people to talk to you in the country, you help them out and see what you can do. It had taken her approximately a semester to learn to walk quickly and keep her eyes trained ahead of her, to shed that provincial squeamishness that had made her so excited to see the world. 

"Can I help you?" she asks tiredly, already leaning away. The woman standing in front of her is small, chirpy, with eyes that scrunch up when she smiles (and Sooyoung knows this because she's currently being faced with the biggest smile she's seen in her life). She's beautiful, but that's as much as Sooyoung is willing to say about her.

"See her?" the woman asks, pointing to the mural they're standing in front of. Sooyoung hasn't had a chance to read the title, but the mural itself depicts the twelve olympian gods, in various states of love and war. The woman strides up to as close to as the mural as she can, and points at aphrodite. The goddess of love and beauty is naked in the mural, idly watching her siblings wage war on some giant or titan- Sooyoung hasn't had the chance to read the sign explaining the mural yet. If the woman would just let her-

"That's me." 

Sooyoung's head swims for a moment, and she's so sleep-deprived that she almost believes the woman, looking back and forth between a classical painting and the woman to decide that yes, this is entirely plausible. 

The haze clears as quickly as it had come, and she turns to walk away, hoping the metal detectors at the entrance did their job and that she isn't about to be stabbed for ignoring a… religious fundamentalist? B-list cult leader? Cult recruiter here to speak to her about her prospects if she joins them, 'we're like a family'?

"Hey!" the small woman yells, and the same suspension of reality happens - "Really, I'm serious!"

Sooyoung must be too tired, because she doesn't realize the woman has jumped in front of her, or somehow teleported right in front of her. 

"I'm sorry, please don't bother me," Sooyoung mutters, trying to turn away. 

"Ha Sooyoung!"

She blinks, her heart dropping into her stomach. "Excuse me?"

"My true name is Aphrodite, but I'm going by Jiwoo right now," the woman grins. "It's good to meet you, ha Sooyoung. Do you want to listen to my story?"

Sooyoung was never interested in neuroscience, which is why she went into cardiology and not neurology or psychiatry like Jungeun or Chaewon, but even she knows that something in her brain is currently off-kilter, distorting her perception and the decisions she's making. She barely has enough time to get home and freshen up before heading to the hospital, but she decides to do something exciting, because she is so impossibly burnt out that this can't hurt. 

"Fine." 

"I am Aphrodite, the goddess of love," Jiwoo starts off, "My sister banished me to earth, and I'm here until-" 

"Your sister?" Sooyoung asks incredulously. Jiwoo's story becomes more and more difficult to follow the more they talk, and she's beginning to wonder if Jiwoo, rather than being a primordial force, is simply a human woman with a few screws loose. 

"Haseul," Jiwoo pauses, "But you may know her as lord of the sky, commander of the elements, lord Zeus. She's fine, but it's really my other sister - Kahei, you probably know her as Hera? - who keeps things running. Don't let the myths fool you, most of them are pretty wrong anyway." 

Jiwoo cuts herself off when she sees the look in Sooyoung's eyes. "What?" 

"Greek gods are Korean?" Sooyoung asks, as tactfully as possible, and Jiwoo's eyes flare. 

"Oh, if I had my symbols of power now…" she growls, eyes an inhuman colour before she grins again, and starts talking. 

The conversation that follows goes something like this, or at least Sooyoung thinks it does, because she forgot to get coffee today and she's trying to run at lowest operating power before her 48-hour shift. She had come to the museum for some semblance of peace, but Jiwoo is giving her none of that.

But the conversation goes like this: 

Greek gods aren't Korean, they're still very much themselves; Jiwoo is just in a form that is most pleasing to the human eye, one that fits in the best with the society she's in right now. Everything has been reshaped for Sooyoung's viewing pleasure, to make sure that nothing is too jarring. 

Like that's working. Jiwoo radiates an indescribable energy, one that is so impossibly bright and beautiful that even looking at her is difficult. You don't have to find Jiwoo aesthetically pleasing (though the form she has chosen for herself definitely is, Sooyoung wouldn't expect anything less of the goddess of beauty) to know that she's beautiful. She just is. 

Sooyoung expresses as much, "You're beautiful, Jiwoo." 

She may be tired, but she's not a monster. Jiwoo's eyes soften accordingly. 

"The fates were right," Jiwoo sighs, "I thought- never mind. Tell me about yourself, Sooyoung!"

"Uh," they're walking out of the museum, the bored receptionist suddenly wide awake and nearly toppling over the counter when Jiwoo waves at him. The people they pass by turn around before they even see Jiwoo, as if they can feel her, this impossibly warm and excitable presence who's decided to dedicate her day to talking to Sooyoung. 

"I'm a cardiac surgeon. My shift starts in an hour or so. I was planning on going home, but I don't think I would've slept well anyway." She shrugs.

Jiwoo makes a shocked sound, "That won't do!" 

Before Sooyoung can protest, Jiwoo takes her face in her hands, and Sooyoung feels a cool wind breeze over her face. The world becomes a little clearer, the sky a little brighter, and when she opens her eyes, she can only sputter, "What did you just do?" 

"Look in the mirror," Jiwoo chirps, holding up a mirror she seems to have conjured from thin air, and Sooyoung gawps at her reflection. It's not about the makeup, though yes, there's some makeup that wasn't there before. Her hair is neat and glossy instead of greasy, the bags under her eyes are gone, as are the dark circles. She doesn't feel any better, but the change in her appearance is shocking enough. 

She looks… younger, softer. Like the person she was before she gave her life to saving lives, the girl who had no concrete plans other than wanting to save the world, one person at a time. 

"I'm sorry I couldn't do more," Jiwoo mutters, "My true blessing is more powerful than this. If I had my full powers, I think you'd feel a lot better right now."

And - this is where the suspension of disbelief ends. 

She shakes her head, backing away from Jiwoo, "No, no, no. I need to go."

She takes off running before Jiwoo can reply, leaving the woman (the goddess?) standing outside the museum, mirror in hand. 

She trips and nearly sprains her ankle as she's stepping into her apartment, and heads straight for the bathroom, where she stares at herself in the mirror. The mirror Jiwoo had wasn't a magic prank mirror of some sort - she looks like she took a nice vacation week off, went for a facial, maybe a spa. She touches her fingers to her lips, and they come away clean even though there's clearly some tint on her lips.

She stares at the mirror, the beautiful, fresh woman in front of her, and feels the exhausted husk of a person within her more so than ever. 

No. There has to be an explanation for what Jiwoo did, and all her little tricks and optical illusions she was pulling. The greek gods are things of the past. They don't exist. They're mythology, to appreciate and to understand the past with. 

Sooyoung wants to scream, shatter the facade in front of her, but finds that she doesn't have the energy in her arms.

-

"Hey, doc," Yeojin, the cardiology resident, greets as she swings into Sooyoung's office. The office is half Sooyoung's, half Hyunjin's, but Hyunjin barely spends any time in the office as it is, always on the run somewhere, meaning that the whole space is effectively Sooyoung's. "Did you do something to your face?" 

Sooyoung lets out a long sigh. Her computer screen is covered with tabs of greek mythology real and gods proven to be real, and she doesn't need the tech-savvy resident (Sooyoung is reminded of her age far too often these days) to make fun of her for not knowing how to close tabs. Sooyoung shuts down tabs by shutting down the entire computer and booting it back up again. "Hey, Yeojin. Who are you accompanying today?"

Yeojin shrugs. "Nothing much going on today, apparently. Hyunjin - uh, dr kim - said I'm free to roam the halls today, since I should get some semblance of real hospital life." 

Sooyoung thinks about the real hospital life that she knows. Leaving your penthouse apartment, and coming to work in a gorgeous luxury car that your astronomically high wages have awarded you. Disappear into fluorescent lights and beeping machines for twenty-four hours without any sleep. Forget to eat, brush your teeth, or even comb fingers through your hair. Speak to the patient's family. Tell them you can't guarantee anything. Apologize, and feel like your own heart has been ripped out, if the worst case happens. Go home, purging your head of what happened in the past twenty-four hours. Get ripped out of bed for an emergency surgery at three in the morning.

Rinse and repeat.

She realizes Yeojin's looking at her expectantly, waiting to be given a task, so Sooyoung coughs, "Uh, you should go hang out with Dr Jung in oncology today. She's a people person. I'm sure she'll love you." 

"Just like you do?" Yeojin grins, and Sooyoung, as tired as she is, can't help but smile. 

"Shoo, little frog," she says, chasing Yeojin out of her office, and Yeojin disappears with a giggle.

"Sending her to Jinsol was a good idea," comes Hyunjin's voice as she steps out from behind a cupboard, and Sooyoung nearly falls backwards in shock. 

" _Christ_ , I thought you were out." 

"I'm heading out now, I was looking for something," Hyunjin informs her candidly, a manila folder in hand. She looks Sooyoung up and down, an impassive eyebrow raising. "Did-" 

"Yes, I did something to my face," Sooyoung interrupts irritably. 

"What? I was asking if you got the number of that sneaker supplier for me. Heejin's birthday is in a month and if I don't order those now they won't come in time." Hyunjin blinks, almost owlishly, "You did something to your face?" 

"Oh," Sooyoung groans, "Sorry. I've just had a weird day. I just changed my phone, so I don't have my contacts, but I have the number. The supplier's super shady, though. No one knows who they are."

Sooyoung sends Hyunjin the number of the sneaker smuggler to Hyunjin, and hears Hyunjin's phone chime.

"This is Hyejoo's number," Hyunjin deadpans. "I'll just go to neurology and ask her for the sneakers."

(As it turns out, Hyejoo, the neurosurgeon who works alongside Chaewon, has simply been volunteering her phone number for Chaewon's very shady sneaker resale business. Chaewon's the real mastermind behind Chaewon's Counterfeit (and Genuine) Kicks, and Hyejoo is the muscle in the operation. _What muscle?_ ) 

Hyunjin takes her leave a while later, leaving Sooyoung to half-glance at the lab reports for a patient she's operating on next week, and mostly spend her attention on the tabs she has open. The one on Aphrodite features most prominently, and though Sooyoung knows her fair share about Greek mythology, she can't reconcile any of that with the small, sprite-like woman she'd met today.

"You're reading up about me!" And that's Sooyoung's second cardiac arrest in a day.

Jiwoo is standing right in front of her, looking no less ruffled than she was at the museum, and all suspicions Sooyoung had of the museum just being a bad dream vanquish. How did she get here? How does she know where Sooyoung works? 

"What the fuck?" Sooyoung says breathlessly. 

"Will you come to the ocean with me?"

"Jiwoo, I will call building security-" 

"Please?" Jiwoo asks softly, the same persuasion pulling Sooyoung close again. "I need to show you something." 

"Why me? Don't goddesses have better things to do?" Sooyoung snaps sourly, a headache already building behind her eyes. 

Jiwoo looks genuinely hurt at that, and Sooyoung rises from her seat, babbling, "That's not what I meant-" 

"Please, Sooyoung?" a small hand encircles Sooyoung's wrist, and she resists the urge to wrench her hand away from Jiwoo's touch, no matter how gentle. Sooyoung doesn't like getting touched, as a rule. "Just let me show you the ocean."

Sooyoung thinks for a very long time. 

And then, "Fine. But not today. Tomorrow." 

"I'll pick you up," Jiwoo promises. 

"How?" Sooyoung asks the empty room, because Jiwoo promptly disappears in a puff of pink dust. 

-

Tomorrow comes a lot earlier than it should, and if the greek gods are real, Sooyoung knows to blame Kronos, the titan of time who has decided to accelerate time and force Jiwoo to meet her that much sooner. 

Except that she's not complaining. She'd spent the remainder of her shift restless and anxious, and had practically raced to the hospital entrance when she signed out. That had been Jiwoo's last chance to disappear, to let Sooyoung think that she hallucinated the whole thing.

But she had been there, standing and waving, in a little dress and a scarf that's so soft, there's no way this is an illusion. 

Sooyoung's about to suggest that they take her car, already fishing around in her pockets for her keys, but Jiwoo simply holds on tight to her hand and snaps her fingers. 

The salty ocean breeze hits her before the realization that they just somehow teleported to the ocean, and for a moment, Sooyoung is at ease, a small smile crossing her face. She's always loved the ocean. 

Then she screams, "Oh my god!"

Jiwoo merely giggles, clinging to Sooyoung, "Convinced yet?" 

She lets go of Sooyoung and walks ahead of her, and Sooyoung has to jog to catch up with her. (she doesn't think Jiwoo had moved that fast, and somehow she's way ahead of Sooyoung.) 

Jiwoo's staring out at the sea reverently when Sooyoung catches up to her, a sentimental hand on her heart, and Sooyoung raises an eyebrow. 

"Oh, the ocean's beautiful today," Jiwoo whispers, "Thank you, Yerim." 

"Who?" Sooyoung asks crossly, and Jiwoo laughs. 

"Poseidon. The sea god. The earthshaker." Jiwoo frowns, tapping a finger on her chin as if in deep thought. "She made horses, too, if you're into that sort of thing. I think it's the best thing she ever did, personally." 

Soooyung hums tunelessly, but doesn't say anything. She's not sure why Jiwoo had brought her here, but she senses that Jiwoo's about to tell her. 

"I was the first olympian," Jiwoo's voice has taken on that same ethereal quality, but she doesn't look into Sooyoung's eyes when she speaks. "I was born from seafoam, and rose from the sea before any of my siblings were born.

"I have never lived, Sooyoung, I have simply been." Jiwoo's eyes glitter, power radiating from her, deep brown eyes flashing solid gold before they go back to brown.

"I have watched humanity fall in love over and over again, blessed you a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes. I watched Paris fall in love with Helen, I watched the sails of a thousand ships rise for her. I imagined for humanity a love that I have never experienced. I set my eye on mortal men - oh, Sooyoung, they called it infidelity, but what do these immortal deities know, of love and kindness and beauty?"

"Sooyoung," Jiwoo says, with the exhaustion of one who has lived for too long, "I loved so many, and I loved them all the same." 

She says their names, one by one, Sooyoung's tired ears pricking at the mention of names she's only heard in myths, now repeated as if they're real. As if their stories actually happened. 

"Adonis," a small red flower appears in her palm, and Sooyoung shouldn't be surprised at any magical machinations by this point, but her heart jumps, still. 

"Narcissus," a white flower joins the red flower in Jiwoo's hand. 

"Anchises," and there is no flower here to sprout, but Jiwoo's eyes are redder than ever, and Sooyoung knows it's pointless to ask for more words. 

Sooyoung watches as Jiwoo lets the flowers fall to the sand, on the edge of the tide. 

"Oh, Sooyoung," she says, grasping her by the arm, pressing her face into Sooyoung's chest, and Sooyoung sees it. 

She sees the tide reach forward with a gentleness that the moon's pull cannot explain, pull the petals into it, and sees them dissolve in a soft bubbling of the waves. Jiwoo is not looking. She doesn't see the tide vanish the painful scars. But Sooyoung is looking, and she sees it, and she believes. In Jiwoo's life story, in the person Jiwoo is, in the previously irreconcilable truth that there are forces greater than her holding a human heart in her hands. 

Because her blood vessels and veins and arteries and heart could work overtime, and Sooyoung still wouldn't be able to articulate the turmoil in her head now. There are only two words in her head, swirling determinedly: 

I believe. I believe. I believe. 

For a woman of science, belief has never come as strongly as knowledge has. 

"I know," Sooyoung whispers back, wrapping her arm around Jiwoo's shoulders. The tide rolls back, as if giving them space, and Jiwoo looks up at her. Her eyes are watery, wide, yet shining with the inexplicable power of a goddess, and Sooyoung feels weak. 

"There is one more thing," Jiwoo says softly. "I was exiled from Olympus, and I can't go back. Not until…"

Tears slip from Jiwoo's eyes, and Sooyoung's eyebrows jump in alarm, "What is it?" 

"I need you to help me, Sooyoung," Jiwoo says softly, and Sooyoung recalls Aphrodite's symbols, her sacred animals - the dove, the sparrow, the swan - thinks how graceful, how beautiful Jiwoo is. "You don't deserve this, but the fates too powerful for me to fight against. I can't go home to Olympus until-"

Sooyoung repeats slowly, her heart sinking, "What is it?"

The words come like fiery flowers blossoming in the innermost surfaces of her heart.

"I need you to love me." 


	2. this love is in retrograde

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hgngg.. wanted to write... 500 more words to hit 10k.. coudl not....  
> if any sentences cut off halfway (as if abruptly silenced) its probably because i wrote snippets as they came to me while studying and i forgot to finish them.. i'll edit them when i read this agai

"Who is this?" Sooyoung yells. 

Hyunjin, taking a slow sip from a cup of hot chocolate, stares at Sooyoung for a good few seconds. "Our resident. You can't keep pretending not to recognize her." 

"Do you not see what's going on?" Sooyoung gestures wildly at Jiwoo, who stands with her hands clasped in front of her genially. Jiwoo has all the outfittings of a resident, and given her small stature, looks pretty much exactly like Yeojin, if Yeojin tiptoed a little. She even has a little lanyard with her beaming face and her name on it. "Who is this woman?" 

Hyunjin blinks. "You're weird today. Sorry about that, Jiwoo."

"Who is Jiwoo?" Sooyoung demands. "Where is our resident? Where is Yeojin?"

"You know me, Sooyoung!" Jiwoo chirps at her side, her eyes bright and cheery, betraying none of whatever deviousness must be hiding beneath. Sooyoung groans out loud. This must be what it felt like to be a character in ancient greek mythology, helpless to the whims and fancies of the gods and goddesses. "I'm your cardiology resident! I graduated from Yonsei! I'm pretty smart!"

Hyunjin mutters some words of assent as she settles down to pore over some lab reports, more or less divorcing herself from the situation. "You should get some sleep, Sooyoung." 

"Okay, no." she pulls Jiwoo by the wrist and out of the room, ignoring Hyunjin's confused stare. 

"What is this place?" Jiwoo asks, when Sooyoung's closed the door to the secret room near their office that practically no one knows about. Hyunjin and Sooyoung made the joint discovery one day when they were junior doctors. They'd eat lunch together in this room, in a bid to avoid their seniors. 

Jiwoo makes an excited little sound, hops on the spot, "A room for a secret tryst!"

"No," Sooyoung says firmly, even though she knows for a fact that the other secret rooms around the hospital are regularly used for trysts between residents, nurses, doctors and other staff alike. She had to find out the hard way the day she went looking for Jinsol during lunch break and instead, found (heard) Jinsol and Jungeun in one of the secret rooms. 

Jungeun wouldn't look her in the eye for a week; Jinsol told her to wait and that she'd go for lunch with Sooyoung in a bit. There really is no rhyme or reason as to why the two of them are together. 

Sooyoung crosses her arms over her chest. She feels too much like a matronly figure berating a rascal with a heart of gold, but she pushes those thoughts aside. "Whatever you're doing, you have to stop. Did you kill Yeojin or something? Why is everyone acting like you're not an intruder?" 

Jiwoo wiggles her eyebrows. "I still have some of my powers. They're good for mild persuasion, and some memory manipulation." 

As if to prove her point, Jiwoo holds up the id hanging from the lanyard she's wearing, designating her as a proper resident of this hospital. It declares that kim (of course a goddess would pick out the most common surname to blend in) Jiwoo has every right to be here, same as Sooyoung.

"And Yeojin?" Sooyoung asks, genuinely worried for the small resident. She wonders if goddesses still wantonly kill mortals to further their ends. Jiwoo wouldn't do that. Would she? She's not allowed to do that. Is she? They live in a society of laws. Do they? 

"Yeojin has a migraine because she and her roommate attended a tiktok rave yesterday," Jiwoo explains, continuing when Sooyoung gives her a thoroughly confused look, "A tiktok rave is like a rave, but one person on tiktok hosts it and everyone just watches and raves from where they are. It's a centralized music experience." 

Sooyoung thinks about the raves she attended - rather, chose not to attend in favour of studying - in her youth. "Oh, wow." 

"Mhm! So what do you say?" Jiwoo grins. "Wouldn't it be cool if the goddess of the heart worked in heart medicine for a day? Defibrillation! Heartbeat! Those are just words I learnt on the internet, which I learnt about yesterday."

There are so many things wrong with what Jiwoo's just said, but Sooyoung opts to ignore that. She doesn't think she has a choice anyway, and if Yeojin is indeed safe and Jiwoo's only manipulating the memories of the entire staff for a day… 

"Wait." she holds up a hand. "What happens tomorrow when Yeojin comes back?" 

"Then they phase me out of their memories," Jiwoo replies. It sounds awfully melancholic when one puts it that way, but Sooyoung figures that she'll deal with the implications of that another day. Just one day. Just one day of babysitting the goddess of love who you have to love, at the risk of space-time reality and the fates hounding your ass. 

"Fine. Let's go." she glares at Jiwoo. "And don't touch anything on my desk." 

-

Jiwoo proceeds to practically lay down across Sooyoung's desk, scattering papers and the various free ballpoint pens Sooyoung's amassed over the years. (the pens aren't free, per se, but she always forgets that and comes back from the bank with a pen in hand. It might count as stealing. Hyunjin has no opinion on this - the most she says about Sooyoung's growing stolen-pen collection is "Yeah, stealing can be fun.") 

"Oh, typical Jiwoo," Hyunjin says monotonously, not looking up. There's a toasted bun on Hyunjin's desk, a post-it with Heejin's languid scrawl tacked on, and Sooyoung surmises that Heejin must've come in while she and Jiwoo were in the secret room. The trauma surgeon has about five minutes of break every few hours, and spends that time running from the er up to their office to see Hyunjin. It's kind of comforting to see how oblivious Hyunjin is to Heejin's affection for her, because it means Sooyoung isn't the only solidly single one in the hospital. 

Despite the carefully schooled expression of annoyance on her face, Sooyoung's heart feels like it's going to beat out of its chest with stress. Being told point-blank that the actual, veritable goddess of love needs you to love her isn't easy on the blood pressure by any means. 

After their talk by the ocean yesterday, Jiwoo had sighed, told her that she'd give her time to think it over, and teleported them both back to the hospital. She'd left Sooyoung alone after that, and Sooyoung had promptly thrown herself back into work to avoid thinking about… whatever it is that she needs to think over. 

"Get up," Sooyoung says gruffly, offering Jiwoo her hand to pull her off her desk. "You have work to do."

"What do I have to do? Say the word and I'll get to it!" Jiwoo chirps, and Sooyoung racks her brain for possible menial tasks to assign Jiwoo. She does not trust Jiwoo with - well, pretty much anything involving medical apparatus. 

She wants to dismiss Jiwoo to Jinsol, owe Jinsol yet another favour (though Jinsol and Yeojin get along famously, so Sooyoung isn't sure why she's even complaining in the first place), when Hyunjin pipes up. "I have an elective surgery soon. Jiwoo can come along." 

Sooyoung wheezes out a sound of relief. She doesn't miss the hurt look that flashes across Jiwoo's face. "Okay, great."

-

"Jiwoo," she calls when Hyunjin's left to prepare for her surgery. Jiwoo looks at her from Hyunjin's desk, where she's sought refuge. "Can we talk? About this whole… thing?" 

Jiwoo peers at curiously, then shakes her head. "No."

"Why?" (Sooyoung sounds a little too desperate for her own liking.)

"You're not ready," Jiwoo says, "I've looked into your heart. There's too much going on to even consider a - pardon the reference - herculean task like this." 

Sooyoung frowns, wanting to argue, but keeping quiet and crossing her arms over her chest instead. "You can do that? Look into my heart?"

"Not in the same way you do," Jiwoo chuckles. She stands, crossing the room to leave for the or, and sighs. Absently, Sooyoung realizes that while her skin and hair have been affected by the cold air blasting from the vents, Jiwoo's skin is healthy, her hair neat and glossy, not a hair out of place. She wrinkles her nose in envy. 

Sooyoung blinks, pinching the soft skin of her inner thigh through her pants to bring herself back to reality. Jiwoo's held her gaze for longer than she thought, her eyes wide and head cocked to the side. "Sooyoung?" 

Sooyoung shakes her head. "Oh, no. Go." 

-

Sooyoung decides to go for lunch today - it's one way to keep Jiwoo away from anything too important, even if Jiwoo's argued that there's nothing to worry about. Hyunjin grunts when Sooyoung asks her if she wants to join them for lunch, which is just as well. She feels like she has to take some time to corner Jiwoo.

By sheer luck, they end up bumping into Jungeun on the second floor, the psychiatrist obviously on her way back to her office when she sees Sooyoung and Jiwoo heading for the cafeteria. 

"Sooyoung!" Jungeun's eyes look a little confused when she sees Jiwoo, and Sooyoung realizes that this is undoubtedly a product of the mind-melding that Jiwoo's performing, but then she smiles a close-lipped smile and says, "Jiwoo, hi." 

Jungeun's never been the clingiest of people, so Sooyoung figures she must look really rundown for Jungeun to step forward and wrap her in a hug. It's really a pity Jungeun hates hugs, because the hugs she dispenses are really, really nice. 

"You haven't been sleeping," Jungeun observes, fingers finding the side of Sooyoung's face and tilting her head up when she steps back. Jungeun's eyes are that familiar dark, and tend to give you that feeling that you're the only person she's looking at, at any given point in time, which is bound to be useful when she speaks to patients. 

"Double shift," Sooyoung mumbles, almost sighing when Jungeun moves her fingers away. "Don't act like it's the first time you've seen me like this."

At this point, it might as well be Sooyoung's default state - exhausted, half out of her mind, with an impostor resident trailing her. 

"Still," Jungeun murmurs, "You wanna come down to my office?" 

Sooyoung's knees nearly buckle, and she and Jungeun share a knowing smile. Sooyoung's spent more hours than she can count slumped into the most comfortable couch in the entire hospital, during lunch breaks or between shifts, when Sooyoung's decided that it isn't worth it to go home. "Do you want to?" 

And God, does she want to say yes. But something pulls her out of her reverie, and it's Jiwoo, but not anything magical or godly that she's done. She just becomes acutely aware of Jiwoo trying to remain as still as possible, so as not to ruin Jungeun and Sooyoung's conversation, and she can't hold Jungeun's gaze.

"It's okay. I was going for lunch with Jiwoo." She jerks a thumb at Jiwoo, who finally moves with an effort, taking a small step forward. 

Jungeun nods, giving Sooyoung a fond smile. Clapping her on the shoulder, Jungeun says, "I'll see you around," and walks off. 

"You and her are close," Jiwoo comments when Jungeun is sufficiently out of earshot, "Have the two of you ever been, mm, intimate?" 

"That's not an appropriate question to ask," Sooyoung says flatly, watching Jungeun disappear back down the corridor. She knows Jungeun's routine. She'll stop by the vending machine at that corner, press A2 for a pack of bacon flavoured pretzel bites (this is a hospital, Sooyoung doesn't understand how that sort of food is allowed here), and finish it by the time she gets back to her office. 

As a cardiac specialist and as Jungeun's friend, she's done her duty and informed Jungeun just how damaging the food is to her. Jungeun promptly ignores her, every time.

She doesn't blame Jiwoo for asking about Jungeun, but still. She shouldn't. It's rude. 

She's also slightly worried that if she tells Jiwoo the truth, the love goddess is going to do something weird. 

"I didn't mean to offend you," Jiwoo says, looking like a kicked puppy. "I just sensed that the two of you had a deeply intimate relationship. Or that you still might." 

The last sentence isn't part of the whole love goddess deal. It's coming from Jiwoo herself, if the puppy-dog look on her face (that she isn't hiding as well as she thinks she is) is anything to go by. 

Sooyoung rubs her palms together to warm them up, a deep sigh coming from somewhere in her chest. 

"We don't. Not anymore." 

"But you love her, of course." 

"Yeah," Sooyoung nods, "In every sense of the word." 

The truth is that Jungeun and her simply just weren't meant to work out. It had been a slow burning romance for the two of them, one that had lasted through college and then some. They broke up on the last day of Sooyoung's residency in the hospital, after three years of dating and four years of mutual pining. 

And the thing about slow burning romances is that you feel entitled to a good outcome. There is no consideration as to whether it might not work out - because you've put in the work. It has to work out. She'd seen that theory put to rest in Jinsol and Jungeun's whirlwind romance, the way Jinsol had tripped her way into Jungeun's life and charmed her instantly, falling hard and fast the same way Jungeun fell for her. 

Despite herself, she feels a pang of loneliness. It's an ugly habit of hers - feeling uncomfortable at the mention of Jungeun and her romantic life, when she should've moved on a long time ago. And it's not that she hasn't moved on from Jungeun, because that would be ridiculous, especially now that Sooyoung works together with her and her current significant other… 

It still stings. 

"I'm sorry," Jiwoo says softly, grasping Sooyoung's hand. "I wish I knew what it was like." 

Coming from anyone, that statement would be hilariously insensitive and off-colour, but coming from Aphrodite herself, Sooyoung figures that it's high praise. Anyone who refused Jiwoo probably ended up turned into various animals and flowers - or was that one of the other goddesses? 

"Thanks," she replies, biting back tears, "Come on. I want to show you the worst food the cafeteria serves." 

The 'worst food' the hospital cafeteria offers is some atrocious attempt at Western cuisine that is really just soggy bread and reheated patties they try to pass off as 'burgers and fries', with a conspicuous lack of fries. To Sooyoung's immense frustration, Jiwoo doesn't think the food is bad at all. 

"It was made with love," and with a wink Sooyoung suspects is designed to piss her off more than out of the love goddess' actual beliefs, "Thank you for the meal!" 

-

Post-lunch, Sooyoung and Jiwoo return to the office. Sooyoung spends about five minutes staring into space as a post-meal break before she goes back to work, Jiwoo sensing that she needs to be left alone and sitting in Hyunjin's seat instead. (The bread from this morning is gone, but the note from Heejin has been indiscreetly slotted into a clear document file peeking out of Hyunjin's drawer.) 

After making sure Hyunjin isn't in the room, all too wary of the appearing act she'd pulled the day before with the filing cabinets, Sooyoung asks, "You caused a _war_?" 

"You're going to have to be more specific," Jiwoo says, busy poring over the Wikipedia entry for Aphrodite. The earnest little Jiwoo on her lanyard couldn't be further from how Jiwoo looks right now, intent on egotistically reading everything that's ever been written about her. 

She's spent the past hour or so searching up her own name on Hyunjin's desktop and going 'ooh!' and 'aah!' at what the humans on the Internet have to say about her. She's really small in Hyunjin's chair, the shoulder rests engulfing her small frame, her feet barely brushing the floor. It's endearing to watch, and Sooyoung's stomach feels warm. 

("This poll ranked me above Haseul and Kahei but below Yerim. What's with you humans and the sea?" 

Sooyoung winces, "I think Yerim has a… different reputation. The three of you aren't known for being very nice to us.")

"The Trojan War," Sooyoung hisses, gripping the edges of her desk to move closer to Jiwoo. "It was kind of a big thing." 

"Oh, yes," Jiwoo nods, "But don't you all blame Helen for the war?" 

"Yeah, but," Sooyoung shows her a tab that she'd saved in the course of looking up everything she could on the greek gods in her caffeine-induced drive to gather all the knowledge she could. "The Iliad says you made Paris say you were the most beautiful of all the goddesses in exchange for Helen's love." This is something Sooyoung only learnt recently - she'd speed-read a webpage on the Trojan war done up by what could have only been a middle-schooler learning to use the computer in the late nineties. 

"What's your point?" Jiwoo asks, tilting her head. 

Sooyoung raises an eyebrow. "You don't think that was kind of awful?" 

"Are you angry at me, Sooyoung?" Jiwoo asks incredulously, her eyes widening, eyebrows raising so high they disappear beneath her bangs. "The Trojan War happened millennia ago." 

Sooyoung furrows her brow. "But still. At the height of your power and influence, you gods-" 

Sooyoung jumps as the sky booms with thunder, and Jiwoo's standing over her when her eyes recover from the light illuminating the room, eyes glowing gold. She looks much bigger than knows she is, and Sooyoung shrinks back into her chair, immediately regretting saying that to Jiwoo. Jiwoo probably doesn't anger easily, but when she does…

Pink powder explodes in Sooyoung's face, and Jiwoo is sitting back at Hyunjin's desk, kicking her feet around, looking the part of the innocent resident again. 

"I made a deal with Paris," Jiwoo says coldly, doing nothing to calm Sooyoung's racing heart. "Everlasting love at practically no cost - his declaration that I was the most beautiful was just perfunctory. It's not my fault they went to war." 

It must be nice to be a goddess, Sooyoung figures. You get to blame everything on humans and they just have to take it. Jiwoo doesn't have to be accountable to anyone. Sooyoung, on the other hand, has very human responsibilities - that involve being accountable for every life placed into her weary hands. If Jiwoo knew the half of it… 

"Are you angry?" Jiwoo asks quietly. 

"No." The word comes out harsher than Sooyoung intended, and she winces, shaking her head. Half not wanting to upset Jiwoo further, half utterly spent from the emotional toll of today. Having to see Jungeun again, and be reminded of everything all over again. She thinks of the story of Paris and Helen, about the deal Paris made with Aphrodite, looks at Jiwoo again. 

Feels a lightning bolt of envy streak through her.

"Everlasting love?" Sooyoung whispers. 

Jiwoo holds her gaze. "Everlasting." 

She disappears.

-

It's storming tonight, which has put her colleagues into varying moods - Chaewon and Hyejoo are delighted with the thunderstorm and head off to their shared office to turn down the lights and watch a good horror movie with the senior nurses. Jinsol passes by her office to give her a small kiss on the cheek, which Sooyoung pretends to gag at but secretly enjoys. Sooyoung doesn't get to source Heejin and Hyunjin's opinions on the storm because they're nowhere to be found. She just rolls her eyes. At least they're finally getting somewhere.

She finds herself with little to do tonight, nodding politely at the nurses who pass her by as she heads to her office. Even the nurses have little to do tonight - though Sooyoung makes sure to rap her knuckles on wood after thinking that. No point risking it, even if she claims to be beyond superstitiopn. 

She feels strange as she approaches her office, but she tells herself it's just the thunderstorm-

Sooyoung's mouth dries when she sees the woman sitting on the couch. She's not any of Sooyoung's colleagues, no one she has ever seen before, but she just knows. 

As much as she hates to admit it, being so close in proximity to Jiwoo has awoken some unknown part of Sooyoung, something that hadn't been there before - something Sooyoung fears she won't be able to take back. 

The woman's presence is so imposing that Sooyoung wonders how she hadn't felt it earlier. She feels the overwhelming urge to kneel before her, or at least avert her eyes. Her eyes are gold like Jiwoo's sometimes are, bright and stern, and she has a peacock feather pinned to her hair. She is majestic - a queen even among the gods. 

The queen of the gods.

"Hera," Sooyoung says softly. She feels as if she might explode, the closer she gets to the goddess, and is all too aware of the raw, brimming power in the room. The power she radiates different from Jiwoo, even if they are siblings, even if they _are_ both goddesses. There is little friendliness on the face of the queen of the gods, and she looks entirely too willing to do something unspeakably horrible to Sooyoung, especially since Sooyoung just pissed off her sister. 

"Ha Sooyoung," the gold-eyed goddess says, "It's good to finally speak to you." 

Not nice to meet you. Good to finally speak to you, which probably means the goddess has been watching over her all this time. 

The goddess chuckles, as if she's read Sooyoung's mind (and Sooyoung knows Jiwoo can't, but can she?) "I am the goddess of the family, Sooyoung. I have been with you from when you were born."

That seems like a severe violation of personal privacy, but Sooyoung is sure the goddess could smite her where she stood if she annoyed her enough. She settles for wrinkling her nose, and trying to make sure her voice doesn't shake, Sooyoung says, "It's good to meet you, Lady Hera." 

The sky rumbles with a ferocity that is almost godlike, and the goddess' eyes crinkle as she smiles. "True names hold power, Sooyoung. It's better off if you call me by my human name." 

Somehow, Sooyoung doesn't think that calling her a human name would make her any less intimidating, or make her any more human. The queen of the gods is clearly unused to being in the human world, as her tongue awkwardly fiddles with the consonants and vowels of their language. The air around her frame shimmers, as if her very presence threatens the fabric of the human world. It probably does. 

(For the first time, Sooyoung realizes how good Jiwoo is at ignoring her Olympian roots and her millennia of being a literal goddess, to seamlessly assimilate now. Or is that part of her punishment? The punishment that she still knows nearly _nothing about_?)

"Kahei," Sooyoung blurts out, remembering her first conversation with Jiwoo. "She said you were named Kahei."

The expression on the face of the queen of the gods only wavers slightly to something inscrutable, before resuming their unaffected demeanor. "She's told you that much?" 

"Yeah," Sooyoung chuckles. In Kahei's icy aura, she suddenly finds that she misses Jiwoo, severely. "She talks a lot."

Kahei looks as if she's about to comment on that, but gives Sooyoung a terse smile instead. 

"A human has not been selected by the Fates in centuries," Kahei murmurs, and fixes Sooyoung with a hard look, "Especially not a human like _you_."

Sooyoung's tongue feels frozen to the bottom of her mouth. 

Should she feel insulted? 

"I don't understand," she says helplessly. Her brow furrows, "I don't understand _any_ of this. Why did Jiwoo come to me?" 

"War is brewing, Ha Sooyoung," Kahei says, her gold eyes deep and all-encompassing. "The Fates have spoken." 

"And what does that have to do with _me_?" 

"You're tired," Kahei says, patently ignoring Sooyoung's question. She stands, a spear appearing in her grip, painted with the patterns of a peacock's feather. Outside, the sky rumbles again, and Kahei fixes Sooyoung with a steady look. "Do not let Olympus down, Ha Sooyoung. I'll be watching." 

Instinctively, Sooyoung shields her eyes from the blinding light that fills the room, the light glowing brighter than ever in defiance of the darkness that the storm clouds have cast over the city. When she lowers her arm, Kahei is gone. 

The storm has stopped. 

-

Jiwoo doesn't come the next day, or the next, which is just fine by Sooyoung - it makes up for the day she _did_ spend in the hospital. She throws herself back into her work, performing two surgeries in two days, both double bypasses. The first one is on an old woman (70F, fall risk, says the dry-erase board over her bed in her ward) who reminds Sooyoung a little too much of her own mother. Reminds her too much of her mother from a decade ago, when Sooyoung was twenty-four, thought she had everything figured out, and decided to tell her she was gay. 

Sooyoung doesn't think about her often. She's just one of the many people in the little box in Sooyoung's head labelled 'Do not think about'. Other occupants of this neat little space include her father (who doesn't talk to her because he wanted grandchildren), Jungeun on a bad day, and Jinsol in relation to Jungeun. She learnt early on that it's beneficial to be able to sequester all the unpleasant, uncomfortable little thoughts in their own little corner of your brain. No neurologist could explain that.

Jinsol intercepts her before she can meet the next patient for her pre-surgery briefing. Her hair is frizzy, her eyes puppy-dog wide and mournful with tears as she jogs up to Sooyoung. 

"You're operating on a teen, right? A girl?" Jinsol asks, and Sooyoung gives her a look that says _I can't tell you that_. 

Covertly, she looks down at the charts she's carrying, although she'd already familiarized herself with the patient. 19F, no known family history of heart disease, abruptly suffered a heart attack halfway during a family reunion, urgently needs surgery. 

Jinsol wraps her cold hands around Sooyoung's, and squeezes. "She's my niece. She's a good kid. Please take care of her, Sooyoung." 

Never make promises you can't keep - and when you're a surgeon, that's all of them. It was the first rule she'd learnt from her instructors, and her seniors. Never make promises to the patients' families, their classmates, their colleagues, because you're setting them up for a long, lonely fall to the bottom while you traipse on with your life.

But that has never applied to Sooyoung - because she has joined every family member, every colleague, and every classmate on that long, lonely descent. She has involved herself emotionally in every patient's story, to the point where it feels like her back may break under the simultaneous knowledge that she cannot do it all - and the desire to do just that. 

She breaks every rule of thumb that's been prescribed to her, designed to make sure she doesn't work herself to death.

She does it because there is no other option for her. 

"I will." 

Jinsol smiles gratefully, pressing a kiss to Sooyoung's cheek before she runs off, her sneakers squeaking against the linoleum. 

The surgery is successful, as are most bypass surgeries, but Sooyoung still feels like something's wrong. 

-

Jiwoo comes back a week later, looking no worse for wear, wearing a visitor's badge and knocking politely on Sooyoung's door. She even waits for Sooyoung to grumble out an 'enter' before pushing the door open. 

"Dr Ha?" Jiwoo asks, and adrenaline floods Sooyoung's veins, as she slams down the laptop (Hyunjin's laptop, at that) she's using and jumps back in her seat. "Could I speak to you?" 

"Where were you?" Sooyoung demands, pointing an accusatory finger at Jiwoo. "You left!" 

"You didn't want me here," Jiwoo says softly, and that kills any retort Sooyoung was going to make. "And it was too much too fast. I shouldn't have come into your life like that." 

"I…" Sooyoung grimaces. Her arms fall limply by her sides, her head throbbing, and she sighs out, "Why are you here, Jiwoo?" 

"I want to show you something." 

Jiwoo moves her hands, one short, jerky motion, and an honest-to-God hologram appears in the middle of the room. Call it goddess over-saturation - Sooyoung isn't too surprised. 

She steps closer to the hologram, beckoning Sooyoung to come close too, and says, "Behold, the human heart!"

It's the iPhone heart emoji. Enlarged a little, and floating in the middle of Sooyoung's office in contrast with the diagrams of the actual human heart on the wall, but very much just the iPhone heart emoji. 

Sooyoung, extremely schooled in her discipline, says flatly, "That's not how a human heart looks like." 

She should know. She had one in her hands a week ago, coaxing it back to life. 

Jiwoo huffs. "Does that matter?" 

"Yes." 

"The correct answer was that it doesn't," Jiwoo says, and with another movement of her hands, enlarges the image of the heart emoji, which has started to pulse. She looks at Sooyoung expectantly, tilting her head. "Do you see what I see?" 

Sooyoung stares at the image hovering in the air. She thinks about what Jiwoo might want to hear. She thinks a little harder, and despite her best efforts - she can't think of a single potent lesson she could gather from watching this goddamn hologram. 

She might risk getting struck down by lightning, but she figures coming up with something that's not there would be more embarrassing. 

"Um," Sooyoung says, hand scratching at the back of her neck, "I see nothing. It's just an emoji." 

She looks expectantly to Jiwoo, expecting her to do something more magical, to deliver her a love story from antiquity. 

Jiwoo promptly bursts out laughing, and the hologram blinks out of existence. 

"What?" Sooyoung asks, "Did I say something wrong?" 

"No," Jiwoo giggles, "I was just messing with you. You're right, there is nothing." 

Then she runs head-on at Sooyoung, and Sooyoung spreads her arms just in time for Jiwoo to jump into her arms and hug her tightly. 

She awkwardly pats Jiwoo on the back, but she can't deny the feeling of relief spreading throughout her, Jiwoo's warmth assuring her that this isn't a dream. "I missed you too, Jiwoo." 

Jiwoo mumbles something unintelligible and hugs Sooyoung harder. When she eventually hops off, looking impressed that Sooyoung could keep her aloft for that long (which isn't hard when Jiwoo weighs close to nothing), she says, "I thought you'd be angry." 

"I told you I wasn't," Sooyoung replies. She squints her eyes, "Though what was this whole thing with the emoji?"

"There was no lesson to be learnt," Jiwoo giggles. "It was just funny watching you squirm." 

Sooyoung raises an eyebrow. "Is that the right lesson to be imparting if you're Aphrodite?" 

Whatever Jiwoo was going to say next is cut short by her eyes flashing gold and her yelping, staggering back one, two steps. She clutches her head, and opens her eyes to Sooyoung peering worriedly at her. 

"Don't do that again," Jiwoo wheezes, taking in a slow, ragged breath. "Please." 

Sooyoung remembers Kahei in her office that night, how she had cautioned Sooyoung against calling her by her true name. Remembers all the questions she had, but was too afraid to ask Kahei directly for obvious reasons. 

"Fuck, sorry." Sooyung scratches the back of her neck, eyelids heavy. "I forgot." 

Jiwoo cocks her head, "Forgot?" 

"Kahei visited me last week, after you left. I thought you knew."

She sees Jiwoo's fists clench by her sides, "What?!"

She's about to say more, Sooyoung can tell. Before she can, though, her eyes flash gold again, and she faints, dropping like a stone. 

-

Sooyoung hovers two fingers near Jiwoo's nose to make sure she's breathing, and is moving back to lift Jiwoo's legs above her head to make sure blood rushes to her brain when Jiwoo trembles. 

"Woh," Jiwoo utters, then chuckles, a clear, melodious sound. "Looks like I've got too much pep to be contained in this tiny body." 

She sits up much faster than Sooyoung would like, and cocks her head again, "What were we talking about?"

"Let's get you some water first," Sooyoung says gently, trying not to laugh, and leads Jiwoo to the nearest water fountain, even as Jiwoo complains the entire time. 

(They're halfway through a tangential, meaningless conversation about the cleanliness of water fountains when Sooyoung realizes she doesn't want to talk about Kahei. Or Haseul, or Yerim, or any of the other primordial gods Jiwoo knows - the primordial god Jiwoo _is._ So she changes the subject to the most diametrically opposed topic she can think of. 

They don't talk about Kahei's visit.) 

-

Sooyoung's schedule is relatively free today - which seems to happen constantly when Jiwoo's around. Jiwoo gets to meet Hyunjin once again, and Hyunjin only looks mildly confused (and later asks Sooyoung if she'd met Jiwoo before) before greeting her. Yeojin is immediately taken with someone with as much energy as Jiwoo, and ends up stealing Jiwoo for half an hour or so when Jiwoo suggests that she knows a thing or two about makeup and makeup gurus. 

(To adapt to the twenty-first century, Aphrodite is now also the goddess of beauty _influencers_ , which Sooyoung is pretty sure is something Jiwoo just made up to screw with her.) 

Jiwoo gets to re-meet Jungeun, who pops in by the office to tell Yeojin that Jinsol wouldn't mind if she went over to the oncology side as a resident because Jinsol's residents are 'really really really dull and not cool'. She even gets to meet Heejin, who nearly trips over her own feet coming into the room with a salted croissant for Hyunjin. 

Jiwoo walks with her to the carpark, the two of them walking in silence, Sooyoung taking in the warm air. 

"Now I know why the Fates sent me here," Jiwoo chuckles, breaking the silence and the synchronized movements of their legs, "Your hospital is full of love."

There's a lot of pain in there too, Sooyoung thinks bitterly. But she smiles, pleased that Jiwoo approves of her friend group. They must be doing something right if Aphrodite herself likes them. Watching them interact with Jiwoo had brought more happiness to Sooyoung than she's felt in the past seven days - and she idly realizes that it's because today was the first day Jiwoo was here. 

She's been in her life barely a month, and brought untold chaos into her life, half of which Kahei and Jiwoo won't even explain, but Jiwoo's already made a massive improvement in Sooyoung's quality of life. She wants to tell Jiwoo that, wants to thank her and apologize for the fact that she probably won't be enough for Jiwoo's project with the Fates. That she is more flaws than strengths, that her heart is too tied down with her patients and her work to run free.

Instead, she says: 

"Where do you even _live_? Do you want me to drive you home?" 

Jiwoo only shakes her head and laughs meaninglessly, a knowing look in her eye. 

They get to her car, Sooyoung hovering around the driver's side before Jiwoo holds up a hand to stop her from getting in. 

"Here, take this," Jiwoo says, eyes shining as she holds out what looks like a pearl, "And you can use it to summon me if you ever really need me. It's for one-time use only, so make sure you use it for something useful!"

"Don't you have a phone?" Sooyoung asks, taking the pearl from her. She examines it - it's a peach-colored pearl, but it's nothing like the pearls she's seen before (okay, just that one time when she went to Vietnam on holiday with Jinsol and spent an hour at the gift shop because Jinsol wouldn't move from the pearl displays). 

Then she feels foolish for thinking a goddess would settle for something less than one-of-a-kind.

"Oh, of course not!" Jiwoo says. "Haseul would shoot down my communications immediately if I used a phone. Do you want a lightning storm, the likes of which you've never seen?" 

To screw with her, Sooyoung pretends to be in deep thought, and Jiwoo's face morphs into an expression of pure panic, "No! You don't want that, Sooyoung! She's bad at aiming her lightning bolts!"

"The king of the gods is bad at aiming," Sooyoung's laughing now, despite Jiwoo's indignantly flushed face, and she pockets the pearl. "Okay, okay. How do I summon you?"

"Yerim gifted me the pearl, so she'd prefer that you throw it to the seabed and make a joint offering to her and me," Jiwoo chuckles, but Sooyoung sees genuine sadness in her eyes at the mention of the sea god. "But I think you'll be alright dissolving the pearl in tap water." 

Sooyoung nods, "I'll take note of that."

Maybe it's because she's out of the hospital, but Sooyoung is suddenly acutely aware of how tired she is. Her knees are buckling with exhaustion, and Jiwoo notices, because she gently tugs Sooyoung's keys from her grasp. 

"Let me drive you home." 

"When can I see you again?" Sooyoung warbles, limping over to the shotgun seat. "I'm a busy woman." 

Jiwoo laughs, small hands surprisingly firm on Sooyoung's shoulders. "You'll see me till the day you banish me from your life." 

Sooyoung can't argue with that. Jiwoo lays her gently into the passenger seat, and Sooyoung falls asleep to the sound of the engine purring, the light from the street lamps flickering over her closed eyelids. 

Sooyoung wakes up alone in her bed, a pink pearl sitting on the top of her dresser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u enjoyed this second part! more characters and more conflict.. more SEXY


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! ive had the olivia + heejin scene prepped for quite a while... if there are inconsistencies its becasue i messed that up sorry  
> ALSO I HAVE A TWT NOW!!! yay lets chat

Fall turns into winter, Jiwoo easily integrating herself into Sooyoung's life as the days pass. The initial shock of Jiwoo showing up in her life fades, though there is the lingering feeling of perdition - that they're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Because while Jiwoo meets her for lunch and gets her snacks from the vending machine (specifically, from the vending machine that sells healthy snacks like carrot and celery sticks), she makes it a point to disappear in a puff of peach dust before reappearing with Sooyoung's snacks in hand. Her eyes have that ethereal gold light in them too often for it to be a trick of the light, and she's almost too charming, drawing the attention and affection of everyone around her with no effort expended on her part.

But Sooyoung has to admit it - Jiwoo is a refreshing presence in her life. Hyunjin acts like she doesn't care about anything but her career (and Heejin), but the near-excited look she gets when she hears Jiwoo's coming betrays her. Jungeun, who practically lived off books on abnormal psychology in college, has become equally infatuated with Jiwoo, and has begged Sooyoung to let her study Jiwoo.

Jiwoo's probably aware of the effect she has on them, anyway. That's what you get when you're the goddess of love - when your Roman equivalent has a planet named after her. The scale of what Jiwoo has experienced in her long, immortal life is daunting, and often feels magnified because of how cagey she is talking about it (Exhibit A: the Trojan War argument). 

And what's even worse is how intent Jiwoo seems on skirting the issue - of Sooyoung having to _love_ her - instead forgoing that to spend time with Sooyoung and buy her snacks instead.

The familiar explosion of pink dust occurs as Sooyoung's leaving the hospital - early, for once, and headed home.

"Hey!" Jiwoo chirps. "You up for dinner?"

"Where do you go?" Sooyoung asks, half-serious as Jiwoo skips alongside her. Jiwoo's whistling a little tune that she must've picked up from a cooking channel on Youtube she's recently gotten obsessed with. (Jiwoo doesn't have a phone because of the whole Haseul striking-her-down thing, so she routinely hijacks Sooyoung's desktop to watch videos with headphones in. She'd called the computer humanity's greatest invention, which, once again, is high praise coming from a goddess.) "When you're not with me?"

Jiwoo pouts, fingers on her chin, "When I need to rest, I go back home. I'm in a realm that's neither Earth or Olympus. I don't know how to explain it to you, but it's home for the time being, since I can't go back."

Sooyoung thinks about a Jiwoo-themed realm, and spares a thought as to how it would be like. 

"But I get restless," Jiwoo continues, "So I spend my time around humans. I joined a tribe in the Amazon yesterday, and then today I went to Manila." 

"And what do you do?" Sooyoung asks, trying and failing to ignore the twinge that Jiwoo's words bring. 

( _Sooyoung is twenty-two again, propped up against the side of her bunk bed as Jungeun holds a dart in her hand, facing the map of the world Sooyoung's roommate has pinned up._

_"Wherever this lands on, we go after graduation. Alright?" Jungeun asks, her words lisped a little because of the braces she has in. She'd had to have a couple of teeth extracted to get the braces put in, and Sooyoung had volunteered to sit in the room with her the whole time._

_As Jungeun gets older, she will complain less about how much she hates her teeth, even without braces, and maybe finally accept Sooyoung's input that no part of her was ever ugly._

_"Yeah, yeah," Sooyoung waves her hand lazily, smiling against the rim of the water bottle she's drinking from. "Just throw it."_

_Jungeun throws it. The dart lands squarely somewhere in the Asia-Pacific region on the world map, but Jungeun struggles with it, and eventually announces, "We're going to Brazil! Uh… Rio de Janeiro!"_

_"What? That can't be right," Sooyoung says, and Jungeun blushes, staring at her feet._

_"I don't have my glasses," Jungeun admits sheepishly._

_Jungeun has the endearing quality of being one of the only people their age Sooyoung knows to have long-sightedness._

_As Jungeun scrambles for her glasses, Sooyoung finishes her water and tosses it over her shoulder, heading over to check out where the dart had landed. She laughs when she sees that it'd landed on a completely different continent from Brazil._

_"The Philippines is where we're going, dumbass," Sooyoung gently admonishes Jungeun as the girl hangs off her shoulder, whining something unintelligible. "Know any cities there?" The last sentence is a jab at Jungeun and her decided lack of geography knowledge._

_Jungeun huffs. "Of course. Manila. Roxas."_

_"Manila," Sooyoung nods, giving Jungeun a pat on the head. "These are fun post-grad trip plans."_ ) 

"I watch, and I listen." Jiwoo clasps her hands together, seeming to notice the look on Sooyoung's face. Her tone drops a little, more gentle. "Sometimes I join in and talk to them if I have questions." 

"That sounds nice," Sooyoung says, trying to make it so that it doesn't come out strained. 

Jiwoo ends up talking about a street food vendor she'd sat near (cloaking her presence so she wouldn't scare anyone), watching him sell various fried snacks from his cart. It's not exactly the most exciting of experiences, but Jiwoo injects her own little exclamations into her observations, and they hold some childlike excitement to them. It's strange to think that the gods may look down on humans with such affection - or maybe Jiwoo's just an exception. 

They're in the parking lot before Jiwoo can wrap up her story about how a line of teenagers had formed to pet a stray dog sitting beside the food cart. Sooyoung clears her throat self-consciously, fiddling with the keys in her pocket, too cognizant of the last time Jiwoo was here. The pink pearl sitting on Sooyoung's dresser. 

"I wasn't actually planning on going out tonight," she opens the back door and sets the files she was carrying, files she plans on looking over at home. "But, uh, if you want to." 

Somehow, she knows how Jiwoo will react. Spending enough time with the goddess makes her very easy to read. 

"It's okay! Just get home safe," Jiwoo gives her a big grin, resting her chin on her hands. She's leaned over the hood, elbows planted firmly down, but Sooyoung isn't worried about the hood denting. (For one, goddesses apparently don't have _any_ human weight whatsoever, which is something Sooyoung had found out when Jiwoo hopped on a weighing scale in Jinsol's office while Sooyoung was talking to her.) "Just help me pick where I should go next: Chaozhou or Nairobi?" 

She can't explain it, but this enthusiasm, this lust for life, this wide-eyed excitement to see everything there is to see, melts Sooyoung's heart. Everything Jiwoo does endears her even more to Sooyoung, so, despite herself, she finds herself saying, "No, get in. You can come to my place." 

"Really?" Jiwoo stands up abruptly, arms by her sides. Despite the fact that Jiwoo's been hanging around her for weeks, going out for meals and whatnot with Sooyoung, she's never actually been in Sooyoung's home. Sooyoung isn't home often, anyway, so it makes sense.

  
A voice in her warns that inviting Jiwoo into her home is opening her life up to even more chaos, chaos she has no time to sort through when she should be giving her all in her work.

She rubs her eyes. "Yeah." 

(Jiwoo's face falls when she realizes they're getting into the car instead of teleporting home. "What do you mean? Why?" 

"You're too dependent on teleportation," Sooyoung replies dryly, deciding not to mention that Jiwoo's liberal use of teleportation scares the piss out of her. That one time Jiwoo had teleported her made her joints ache for a full day. "I'm cutting you off.") 

-

"What's that?" Jiwoo asks, pointing, and Sooyoung has to narrow her eyes to see through the mess of headlights in traffic. 

"The 'Baby on Board' sign? It means they have a baby on board," Sooyoung responds. The sticker is tattered at the edges, though, and right above it is a 'My daughter is the Child of the Month at Daeseong Preschool!' 

"Child of the month?" Jiwoo says, sounding terrified, and it occurs to Sooyoung that to the uninitiated like Jiwoo, 'Child of the Month' has some very ritualistic, sacrifice-a-child-every-full-moon connotations.

The thought of someone's daughter sitting on top of a sacrificial pyre draws loud laughter from Sooyoung, and even more shock from Jiwoo. Jiwoo's expressions are comical enough in and of themselves to spur more laughter. 

"No," she laughs when she's recovered, Jiwoo looking meek and very stunned. "It just means that some preschool randomly chose this person's kid to give a sticker to. It doesn't mean anything - there's nothing special about getting one." 

"Did _you_ ever get one?" Jiwoo asks, and Sooyoung can hear her mutter 'child of the month…' very thoughtfully under her breath. 

Sooyoung rolls her eyes, but reminds herself that Jiwoo isn't used to such humanly trifles - she doesn't know what's important. For once, she lets her pride rise to the surface, and says, none too modestly, "I was valedictorian in high school. I got a near-perfect score for the CSAT. I made the Dean's list every year." 

To which Jiwoo glibly replies, "Not answering my question. You never got a sticker?"

Sooyoung, despite her great ineptitude for dealing with children, tries her best whenever she has to deal with younger patients. She has a roll of dinosaur stickers in her bottom drawer alongside some sugar-free lollipops, all in part poached by Yeojin more than any of the children Sooyoung's met in her line of work. Stickers rank up about as high in utility as fancy stationery and ribbons for her. 

"The last time I got a sticker would probably have been in elementary school," she tells Jiwoo, "On a math worksheet, or something." 

"Why didn't you give that to your parents to put on your car?" 

"They didn't care much for anything sentimental," Sooyoung mutters, not sure why she's telling Jiwoo this, but figuring that she might as well know, choosing not to explain the much easier concept of people not typically putingt worksheet stickers on car windshields. "They wanted me to grow up and make good money so I could support them." 

Support them, she does. Every month, an amount in the low five figures is credited into her parents' account. Every month, nothing but a short message of acknowledgement comes following the transaction. Sooyoung doesn't necessarily mind. Nor does she blame them. Her parents are products of another time, and circumstance made their parent-child relationship more transactional than Sooyoung would've liked. 

It's her favourite lie: That she deserves to be treated the way she is by her parents. That things are just _like that_ for a reason. She lived up to every standard they expected out of her. 

It still feels like she has something to prove. 

"Do you want to hear about my parents?" Jiwoo asks, sensing Sooyoung's dipping mood. 

"Sure." 

"The Titan Kronos cut Ouranos up, threw his junk into the ocean, and I was born from the resulting seafoam." Jiwoo folds her arms and shakes her head. "I know that doesn't match up to your parents, Sooyoung, but man." 

That gets Sooyoung to crack a smile. "Ew."

"You're doing the best you can," Jiwoo says tenderly, and this seems to surprise both of them, because Jiwoo's shoulders jump a little. It's hard for Sooyoung to keep her eyes on the road as Jiwoo speaks. "With what you were born into, you're doing the best you can. And sometimes we mix up obligation and love till we're all confused, you know." 

She taps her fingers against the steering wheel. Her apartment building comes into view, and Sooyoung rattles out a breath. 

"I _am_ confused. Not just about my parents. About… this. What are you doing?" 

"Sooyoung-" 

"I need to know the truth," Sooyoung cuts her off, "About everything." 

She's never seen Jiwoo's expression change so abruptly. But this is the one thing she knows she deserves. Jiwoo has refused to say a word, and with Kahei's warnings about war, it doesn't seem fair for her to maintain this radio silence. She deserves this explanation. 

So why, _why_ does it feel like she doesn't? 

"Don't I deserve it?" Sooyoung says, pleadingly, and Jiwoo slumps into the passenger seat.

They pull into the parking lot. Jiwoo's eyes are sporadically gold, her fists clenched in her lap. She's not angry. She's thinking, Sooyoung knows by now how to tell the difference. She's content to wait, so they sit in the thrumming car. 

It's started raining, a soft evening drizzle that smears up the windshield as Sooyoung shuts the car off. She stares at Jiwoo, looking away when the energy the goddess is emanating becomes too much. 

Jiwoo likes rain. It had started raining while they were heading back to the car, and as Sooyoung cursed and shucked her jacket up over her head, Jiwoo had raised her arms up in joy. Apparently, the only times it rains on Olympus are when Haseul is _really_ angry, and according to Jiwoo, human rain just feels better on the skin. 

"I don't know either," Jiwoo says softly, finally. "How do I make you love me when you are _so_ clearly in love with someone else, Sooyoung? It's not fair. It would be selfish of me."   
  
"I'm not in love with J-" The name doesn't have to exit Sooyoung's mouth for her to realize that she's guilty as charged. "Why me? And why are you even here in the first place?" 

"Sooyoung," Jiwoo chokes out quietly, "You don't need to love any more than you already do. You give so much of yourself."

A goddess is having a mental breakdown in Sooyoung's passenger seat.

"So it's you," Sooyoung says flatly, irritation growing in her chest. " _You_ need to love me. Is that it?" 

Jiwoo looks utterly helpless, and Sooyoung feels bad for putting her in that position. It's never easy to talk to Jiwoo, not when she reminds Sooyoung of herself. 

"The Fates sent me here to restore balance to Olympus. They said you would be the one to help us. That love would be essential to avoid the downfall of the gods. Olympus is facing war. My siblings are busy taking sides. And I'm here, alone." 

She seems to be moving in and out of reality now, as she flickers in distress, eyes glowing. Sooyoung thinks she sees a flash of a royal sceptre in her hand, rose gold and tipped with a heart. She wonders how Jiwoo would look as a queen, resplendent on Olympus, instead of down here with Sooyoung. 

Which leads her to her conclusion, and comes out more heartless than she intends - "If you can't do anything here, then aren't you wasting your time? Why not go back?" 

"I can't go back," Jiwoo whispers, beginning to cry softly. At the sight of tears dribbling down her cheeks, Sooyoung's heart squeezes. 

How could the goddess of love ever be denied love? 

Somehow, she knew starting this conversation would always end up here, with both of them stressed and restless, unable to come to a logical conclusion. It's too soon. It's too soon for their friendship - or whatever this is - to end. It can't. Their hearts can't break so fast, so painfully. She's supposed to be able to prevent things like this from happening.

And yet, as she feels it unravel between her fingertips, it just feels like it is. 

"I thought spending time with you, with humanity, would give me a better idea of what exactly I have to do," Jiwoo chuckles. "I don't think making you love me is what I have to do. A jealous lover stealing another's love... that goes against everything I stand for. It has to be something else. I just… I don't know what that is." 

_Lover._

Jiwoo called Sooyoung her lover.

Any words Sooyoung had on her tongue are scorched away when Jiwoo speaks, when she lays her eyes on the woman beside her. Jiwoo looks so small and fragile in the shotgun seat that she wants nothing more to embrace her, to tell her that everything will be fine. 

Isn't that what she's used to, anyway? Making promises she doesn't keep?   


"I love being around you, Jiwoo," Sooyoung says softly, "Everyone does." 

She thinks about how happy Yeojin gets when Jiwoo brings her some pink candy when she comes to visit the office. She's searched for that pink candy and still hasn't been able to find it in any store. 

She thinks about how deeply she had blushed when Hyunjin, after Jiwoo left, had asked her if they were dating. She had cuffed Hyunjin around the ear for her efforts, but if even the woefully oblivious Hyunjin sees something… 

Try as she might, there is one thing still holding her back. A person holding her back, a memory that won't let her go. 

"I know." Jiwoo smiles a strained smile. "The Fates must not think it's enough." 

It's not enough. She isn't enough for Jiwoo, or for the Fates themselves. 

She knows what's coming next, but she's tired of sitting back and observing - she lunges across her seat, forgetting about the seatbelt and being ripped back into her seat. Her hands reach out to Jiwoo, brushing her skin, and she feels small jolts of electricity arc into her. 

"Don't go," she says desperately, "Y-You said you wanted to watch Wonder Woman, right? I bought the DVD so we could-"

"I have to go and figure this out," Jiwoo says softly. "I'll go around and talk to some of my spirit friends, and I'll figure out why you and I have been pushed like this." 

And then- she reaches over and kisses Sooyoung, adjusting herself so she's straddling Sooyoung's lap. Sooyoung's so shocked that she doesn't close her eyes. In fact, her eyes wide and terrified, but she kisses back into the sweetest kiss she's ever experienced, intoxicated by everything about Jiwoo.

"I'm begging you," she says, tears rising to her eyes when she feels Jiwoo slipping away. Her aura is getting stronger, the pink light shining around her testament to her departure from the human world. She's getting lighter and lighter in Sooyoung's lap, but Sooyoung tries to hold on, "Please stay with me, Jiwoo." 

"You have the pearl," Jiwoo says, and then she fades into nothingness, "Don't forget the pearl, okay?" 

-

A few weeks pass without Jiwoo, and every moment of it hurts. There are days she wakes up from dreams about Jiwoo - cryptic dreams where Jiwoo is stuck somewhere and calling out for Sooyoung to help her that she brushes off as her brain filling in the 'damsel in distress' trope for her. There are other days with no dreams. She doesn't know which one is more awful, and considers asking the neurologists she knows for help. 

The pearl sitting on her dresser glimmers whenever she wakes up from dreamless sleep. She's considered using it before, to fill a glass of water and submerge the pearl, but Jiwoo had made it sound like only a massive crisis would warrant calling her back with the pearl. And this doesn't count as a massive crisis. Missing Jiwoo isn't a crisis. 

And so one day, in a total gesture of tired submission and her missing Jiwoo, Sooyoung does the unthinkable. She shows Hyejoo, the neurologist who is also (unfortunately) her friend, a picture of Jiwoo. 

Most pictures of goddesses don't show up well, but this one does. It's a picture taken with Jiwoo posing beside the Yonsei University sign. She's all garbed up in winter gear, but the smile in her eyes is unmistakable. She'd wanted to take a picture to lie to humans that she really _did_ graduate from Yonsei. 

At the time, Sooyoung had given her a long lecture on how fraud is a serious offence, and that she probably wouldn't want to get tangled up with the law. Jiwoo had just chuckled and waved it away, which had provoked another round of scolding from Sooyoung. 

"She's really pretty," Hyejoo comments nonchalantly, then in that acidic way of hers that simultaneously amuses and antagonizes Sooyoung, "So how'd she end up in this situation?" 

"We're not dating," she says defensively, not realizing that Hyejoo hadn't mentioned anything of the sort, and frowns, "Hey, what's wrong with me?" 

Hyejoo leans back in her chair, lips quirked in a smirk, fingers steepled behind her head, "Do you really want me to tell you?"

"Yes," Sooyoung frowns. 

"Your fervent fear of commitment," Hyejoo begins ticking off her fingers, "Your pessimism, your inability to tell when good things are in front of you, your complete lack of self-care and lack of self-preservation instincts. Your fashion sense, if I had to go there. There's not much here to work with, is what I'm saying."

Ego bruised, but knowing that Hyejoo is completely right, Sooyoung decides to play dirty instead. She looks at a spot behind Hyejoo and raises an eyebrow, deadpanning, "Oh look, Chaewon's coming." 

Her plan works, thanks to vague whispers she'd heard from Yeojin that Chaewon and Hyejoo have been avoiding each other like the plague since they got back from a conference in Osaka. She doesn't know all the details, but she knows enough to know that Hyejoo would rather die than be in the same room right now. 

True to form, Hyejoo nearly falls out of her chair in her bid to get up, snatching her jacket from the back of her chair and dragging them out. She scowls at Sooyoung's laughter, punching her solidly in the shoulder. Hyejoo is a lot weaker than she lets in on, so it barely registers as a punch. 

"Asshole," Hyejoo growls. "And unoriginal. Your stupid resident did the same thing to me." 

Sooyoung smiles smugly, "So the rumours are true. What's up with you and Chaewon, then?" 

  
"Not saying," Hyejoo snaps, and looks poised to say more before she's interrupted.

"Olivia!" a kid's voice pitches down the hallway, and Hyejoo's eyes immediately soften when she sees the child at the other end of the hallway. Sooyoung grunts as Hyejoo dumps everything she's holding - her jacket, her phone, her purse, which are apparently made from lead - into Sooyoung's arms. She watches Hyejoo get tackled head-on by a small boy, who's happily chirping _Olivia I missed you!_ even as Hyejoo hugs him. 

"Olivia," Sooyoung mutters to herself, and smiles. 

Hyejoo lets her young patients call her Olivia. Being a little kid going for brain surgery is scary enough, so Hyejoo tries to make it less intimidating any way she can. So they call her Olivia, a name she picked out from an English baby name book, instead of Dr Son. And though Hyejoo isn't particularly child-oriented (she's barely adult-oriented as is), she has an odd charm that keeps the children happy and excited to see her. It's always good to watch. 

Sooyoung idly watches Hyejoo and the little boy talk, the boy's father standing a ways behind him. Save for a clean scar visible even through the fuzzy layer of hair on his head, you'd have no idea what this child's gone through. The boy's here for a follow-up with another one of their colleagues, but he rambles to Hyejoo how hopeful he had been to see her again and could she please be his presiding doctor instead of the other lady who he has to call Dr Kim, Olivia is so much cooler than her? 

Hyejoo's eyes crinkle as she smiles, and her voice is uncharacteristically soft, gentle. She looks up at the boy's father, who smiles back, but taps his watch. She nods, and pats the boy on the shoulder, "You better get going, Jiwon." 

"Okay!" the boy hugs her one last time. His hands aren't even long enough to reach the back of Hyejoo's shirt - that's how young he is. He beams at her, "Bye, Olivia!" 

Hyejoo waves at the boy until he's disappeared from sight, and Sooyoung feels the need to wave as well. She lets out a long sigh when she turns back to Sooyoung, a contented smile taking up most of her face, "Thanks for holding my stuff."

"Such a softie," Sooyoung teases without malice - it's good to remind each other of the importance of their jobs, especially when they're on the ends of their ropes, jaded and disappointed with life. They exist in a semi-permanent state of disillusionment, but respect each other immensely. They keep each other sane, even just during the brief periods where they can meet. If Hyejoo weren't here, Sooyoung doesn't know what she would do with herself. 

Hyejoo shrugs awkwardly, but her smile stays on the whole time they walk to the cafeteria.

-

The cafeteria is more packed than usual today, but Sooyoung and Hyejoo get seats easily, Jinsol beckoning them over to a table for four and asking them to eat with her and Jungeun. 

Hyejoo eagerly accepts Jinsol's invitation, and gives Sooyoung a confused look when Sooyoung hesitates. 

The pit of discomfort in her stomach at the thought of seeing Jungeun again - and seeing Jungeun with Jinsol, of all people - burns, and she doesn't know why. 

Jiwoo would know. Jiwoo probably caused this - this newfound, creeping infatuation that's found its way back into her heart… Jiwoo _left_ her because Sooyoung is still in love with Jungeun, and she will never forgive herself for it. For this newfound, rediscoveredinfatuation with Jungeun.

Except that it isn't so newfound, and that it never really left. And that it's the reason why Sooyoung will _never_ be able to love Jiwoo. The reason why Jiwoo will probably never be able to go back to Olympus. 

Kahei's words boom in her ears.

_Do not let Olympus down, Ha Sooyoung._

It's just one of the things Sooyoung pointedly avoids thinking about, and one of the things Jiwoo and Sooyoung do not talk about. 

"I don't want to trouble you," she tells Jinsol, spotting Jungeun in the distance as she carefully walks over with two bowls of food balanced on a tray. Her back is ramrod straight as she makes her way through the crowd, looking straight ahead. Jungeun hasn't seen Sooyoung yet, so she could escape now if she wanted. 

Jinsol looks confused, tilting her head in question. "Hyejoo and I were just-" 

"What's wrong with you?" Hyejoo asks, still looking confused but mostly annoyed, her no-bullshit attitude coming to the surface as she circles her fingers around Sooyoung's wrist and pulls her into the seat beside Jinsol, sitting opposite them just as Jungeun comes back. 

Sooyoung ends up in the seat opposite Jungeun, who gives her a big smile, "Hey." 

And then to Jinsol, "They ran out of bell peppers. You can have mine, I don't want them." 

"Damn!" Jinsol says, pumping her fist and taking her bowl of black bean noodles from the tray. She squints at Jungeun, "Shouldn't I have gotten change?" 

"They raised the prices." 

Jinsol stares at her other half, and the revulsion Sooyoung feels at the smug smirk Jungeun responds with is overwhelming. That was an expression she's very much used to - it comes out when Jungeun's teasing someone, when she's pulling their leg because she's that comfortable with them. 

"They did _not_ ," Jinsol says, and holds out her hand, making a come-hither motion. "Kim Jungeun." 

Jungeun bursts out laughing and sticks out her tongue, Jinsol grinning like a lovesick fool, and at this point, even Hyejoo's had enough. 

"I'll give you the change from my own wallet if you two stop," Hyejoo groans. 

Jinsol raises a crafty eyebrow, "And how was the conference in Japan, Hyejoo? Anything weird happen with any of your colleagues?"

Hyejoo stares at her in utter shock, and Jinsol smirks, "Yeojin told me about the afterparty in Osaka." 

Hyejoo _growls_. "I'll kill her." 

"You're all children," Sooyoung chides, trying to ignore the fact that she feels ill. She gets up from her seat, addressing Hyejoo, "Let's go order our food. I'm hungry." 

Sooyoung isn't hungry. She feels too sick to order anything to eat, especially when she happens to turn back to their table and sees Jinsol leaning over to kiss Jungeun on the cheek. Jungeun shoves her away, the tips of her ears reddening, but Sooyoung can see that she's laughing. She's happy. 

She's tempted to settle for just a bottle of water and a fruit cup, but Jungeun would fuss over her to no end, and she's not in the mood to receive extra attention from her. She ends up behind Hyejoo in the queue at the bibimbap stall instead, palms sticky with sweat as she struggles with coins and bills. Her meal is skimpy compared to Hyejoo's, who adds an extra egg and strips of beef, making a happy little noise when she gets her food. 

As they're waiting for Sooyoung's food to be prepared, Hyejoo pokes her gently in the ribs. 

"You okay? You suddenly got real weird around Jinsol."

"I'm tired," Sooyoung lies tiredly, thanking the stall owner when the food comes. "Long day."

Hyejoo very obviously doesn't believe her, judging from the doubtful look she gives Sooyoung, but she's nice enough to let it go. For the first time in her life, probably, because Hyejoo can be like a wolf chasing its prey when she wants to be. 

"If you're sure, then I believe you. But you've gotta take care of yourself too, you know."

"I know," Sooyoung says, and that's the end of it. 

Lunch is a nightmare, and without Jiwoo's usual presence in her life, she feels lonelier than ever. If Jiwoo were here, she'd sneak into the cafeteria and eat whatever Sooyoung ate. If she were here, she'd appear just before Sooyoung went for lunch and teleport them to Chengdu for some mouth-numbing spicy food. In the week before Jiwoo left, they'd gone to France to eat… snails. 

She'd eat any amount of snails right now if it meant Jiwoo would come back from whatever expedition she's on. 

She deserves this. She just keeps reminding herself that she deserves this. She chased Jiwoo away. She's the one who's still not over Jungeun, even though Jiwoo is so easy to love. She's the one who'll bring Olympus crashing down, and who knows what that even entails. 

"How's Jiwoo?" Jungeun suddenly asks, "I haven't seen her around." 

Hyejoo gives her an absolutely damning stare, and Sooyoung just stares at her food. Prays that Jungeun will just let it go, and not try to make her feel better. 

"She's down with the flu," Sooyoung says flatly, staring straight at her food.

"What about you?" Jungeun asks, "Sooyoung, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine." And then, in an effort to steer the conversation away, "Just thinking about how Hyejoo's gonna kill Jinsol and Yeojin later."

That draws an indignant squeal from Jinsol, who launches into a story on how this isn't her fault, the Hyejoo-Chaewon thing is too juicy to pass up, and Sooyoung fades back to black. 

\- 

She comes back from lunch feeling sicker than ever, and Hyunjin notices. Hyunjin pretends not to care about anyone or anything, but she's frighteningly perceptive. It's what helps her notice when a patient is concealing the full truth from her, or how she let Yeojin go home early the day Yeojin got dumped by her girlfriend. It's what makes her a better doctor than half of the people here. 

"Someone called asking for you while you were gone," Hyunjin says. She's typing with her left hand and eating a cream puff with her right (courtesy of Heejin, no doubt) while talking to Sooyoung, and Sooyoung marvels at her multitasking ability. She's the complete opposite of her girlfriend. "A Mr Jo." 

"Asking for?" 

"He was weird," Hyunjin hums, "He said it was imperative that you get his message. I offered to pass the message on, but he said he'd just come later."

"That's weird. None of my patients are a Mr Jo."

Hyunjin shrugs. Sooyoung's about to collapse in her chair when Hyunjin speaks, "You should go and lie down." 

Sooyoung furrows her brow, but Hyunjin says, "You haven't been looking good for a while now." 

"I know," Sooyoung sighs, "It's because-" 

"Uh-uh," Hyunjin shakes her head, holding up a hand, and Sooyoung cracks a smile. Hyunjin's mantra is: _The less I know, the better_. 

"Seriously, though," Hyunjin remarks, "Yeojin and I can hold the fort. Go and rest."

Sooyoung smiles. "Thank you." 

Sooyoung makes her way to their secret room, and on the way, realizes just how tired she is. At this point, Jiwoo would appear and chat her up, try to convince her to just go home, and Sooyoung would refuse. 

No Jiwoo today. It's just her. 

She opens the door to the barely-used room, fully intent on flopping on a bed and passing out, so she's surprised when she realizes Heejin's already here. 

Did Hyunjin tell her about this place? Sooyoung's nose wrinkles - do they use this room for unsavoury purposes? If they do, she is going to make Hyunjin regret being born- 

Then she catches the look on Heejin's face, the familiar empty expression, and realizes that that's not it. 

"Bad day?" she asks quietly, trying not to disturb the apparent tranquility. 

A nod. 

"You can't save everyone. You know that." 

_You can't save everyone, and trying to do that will only hurt you. That's just how it is._

"It was… so much this time."

They all have their bad days, but they must be especially bad for Heejin, one of the few trauma surgeons in the hospital. Other, smaller hospitals don't have dedicated trauma departments, so they send their cases here. It usually means that Heejin sees patients so badly brutalized it takes a miracle to save them. Combine that with the slew that comes with city life - car accidents, motorcycle accidents, falling scaffolding in construction sites - and Heejin sees lots of things that need a miracle. 

Sometimes, Heejin works miracles. Sometimes she doesn't. 

"It was a fucking kid, man," Heejin says, her voice trembling, "A kid with a GSW. His dad brought him in. Sooyoung, his dad shot him."

Sooyoung and Heejin were classmates in medical school, albeit distant ones, and Sooyoung knows that Heejin used to top her classes like they were nothing. She also knows that Heejin has always placed an unreasonable amount of stress on herself. She thinks it's why Heejin became a trauma surgeon. It's a high pressure, high risk environment, and Heejin usually thrives in places like that. 

Not now, she supposes.

So Sooyoung doesn't say a word. She knows she doesn't have to. She gingerly closes the door behind her, and sits on the bed beside Heejin. The bed sinks down with her weight, and she hears Heejin sigh softly. 

"Just when you think you've got it all figured out," Heejin mutters, cracking her knuckles, "More of it comes your way." 

Sooyoung says nothing, instead rubbing a thumb over the top of Heejin's clenched fist. Heejin just shakes her head hard, a disgusted look on her face, before she lapses into silence.

"Sooyoung?" Heejin asks, after a good five minutes or so have passed.

"Yeah?" 

"Do you ever regret your decisions?" Heejin wears an unreadable expression, one that might as well be a physical wall between the two of them. "Not just when treating a patient or during surgery. Just… what you've done with your life." 

_Jiwoo._

"Yeah. Who doesn't?" she pats Heejin on the thigh, ignoring the ugly feelings springing up in her. "Hey, let the sadness run over you, and-" 

"And let the waves crash on the shore," Heejin and Sooyoung finish the sentence together. They both laugh. It's advice from a now-retired pediatric surgeon who had unofficially mentored their entire batch of junior doctors. Their colleagues remember the phrase all too well, and it's gotten corny over the years, but Sooyoung can't deny that it's remained good advice.

But the thoughts of Jiwoo come back again - how she speaks so fondly of the sea god, Yerim. How the pearl sits on Sooyoung's dresser, like a threat. 

-

She finds the king of the gods late at night, as she wraps up her shift and leaves the hospital, coat wrapped tightly around her body. It's outright icy outside, and Sooyoung has never been a fan of winter.

As she steps out into the parking lot, she feels it immediately. 

The same godly aura permeates the air, the unmistakable power buzzing through the air and making the hair on Sooyoung's arms stand. Gone is any semblance of repressed power like what Kahei had emanated - Lord Zeus, Lord of the Sky and commander of the elements, is standing in the empty parking lot beside Sooyoung's car, locking eyes with her as she hesitantly walks forward. 

"Haseul, right?" she says, and the king of the gods hums in affirmation. Sooyoung feels a lot more relaxed than she thought she would be. There's an eagle perched on Haseul's forearm that changes rapidly, between a biological lifeform and a statue of solid gold. She doesn't have any of the same adornments her wife did. Sooyoung thinks she doesn't need any. 

"Sooyoung," Haseul extends her hand, and laughs out loud when her handshake shocks Sooyoung back a few inches. She has a bracelet around her right wrist that glows and shimmers, even without light. She rubs her hands together, "Sorry, I'm still trying to figure- you know, it doesn't matter."

Muffling a laugh, Sooyoung nods. Haseul scowls, and outside, thunder rumbles, the clouds lighting up for a split second with lightning. Presumably, it's a scare tactic, but Sooyoung doesn't scare easily. (Which isn't true, but Haseul doesn't scare her easily, at the very least.) Thankfully, Haseul is a lot less intimidating than her wife, despite being King of the Gods and all that. 

"How are you liking life, Sooyoung?" 

She blinks. It's not a question she was expecting to hear. She was expecting thinly-veiled threats, or at least an arrogant show of power. 

"It's good, I guess," she shrugs.   
  


Haseul smiles. The king of the Gods is beautiful, with narrow eyes and a sharp nose, a look that makes her look entirely harmless. She feels more like the goddess of the family than the _actual_ goddess of the family, her wife. 

"You must be the luckiest human in millennia," Haseul hums, and then Sooyoung sees it - the flash of danger in her eyes. "To have met Lord Zeus and not been blown to smithereens." 

Thunder rolls again, and Sooyoung gets the impression that while Kahei is outright dangerous, Haseul is concealing something. You don't get to become the king of the Gods without being a little menacing. 

Haseul wants something.

"I'm glad that I met you before my wife did," Haseul purrs, "But I'm sad that Aphrodite isn't here to join us." 

Sooyoung stills. Haseul doesn't know that Kahei visited her. This feud - whatever feud it is - must be so much worse than what Sooyoung had guessed, if the king and queen of the Gods don't know each other's coming and goings.

"Jiwoo went to find out the truth," Sooyoung says stiffly, leaning away from Haseul. "I don't know where she is, but I know she'll be back." 

"Mhm," Haseul says disinterestedly, before reaching a hand out to Sooyoung. She flinches reflexively, expecting that Haseul's about to hit her, but instead, Haseul has a pearl in her hands. The pearl. Jiwoo's pearl, the one that Yerim gave her. The last thing Sooyoung has to call Jiwoo back.

"Do you know what this is, Ha Sooyoung?" Haseul asks dangerously, and Sooyoung takes a step back.

It was a mistake to ever think Haseul was harmless. 

"My brother crafted it, obviously," Haseul says carelessly, "Why he has any sympathy for Aphrodite I have no idea. But I can feel the energy coming from this. It's a homing beacon. It lets Aphrodite find her way back to you. It lets her know you're safe and alive. As long as the pearl is whole, she knows you are alive, and she can trace her way back to you. If it were to be destroyed, she would be lost, unable to return, and she would think you were dead. It's very cute." 

Haseul's eyes darken. "But it interferes with Olympian interests." 

A small window made from what seems to be literal clouds opens beside Haseul, and Sooyoung stares desperately at it. 

"That is Aphrodite," Haseul says, and the scene appears. It's Jiwoo. Sooyoung wants to launch herself bodily into the window, before realizing that it would be very stupid to do so. This isn't real. Not in the way that she wants it to be, anyway.

Jiwoo isn't on Earth - it's clear, given by the non-human spirits she's talking to. She's in a semi-godly form, a flower crown on her head, radiating a soft pink aura, and she would be beautiful if she didn't look so upset. Sooyoung can't hear anything, but she sees Jiwoo say the word _No!_ over again, before she shoves the spirit away and continues walking. She passes by a few other spirits, but she doesn't speak to any of them. The background is grey and drab, and Sooyoung knows it must be hell for someone who loves color. 

She's crying from frustration, fists balled at her sides.

And then she sees Jiwoo mouth one word. 

_Sooyoung._

"Lord Zeus," Sooyoung gasps out, looking back to Haseul, her heart squeezing so tight she feels she might die. "Please don't." 

Haseul's eyes blaze solid gold, and she crushes the pearl in her fist. 

The window disappears from existence, Jiwoo's connection to her is severed, and everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay

**Author's Note:**

> am intending for this to be long, worldbuildy, exciting, grand.. those are just some adjectives  
> leave a comment / kudos if u liked it!! ty  
> i haven't been responding to comments bc i uploaded the first part during exam season orz but i read all of them and tysm, i really really love comments and i cant articulate just how much i appreciate them <3 please leave more .. teehee
> 
> twt is @9dalsol  
> my ko-fi link is at ko-fi.com/99yeon if you'd like to buy me a drink!


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